The Doctor and his American Friend
by Meg Phelps
Summary: The Doctor is in America, again, but this time he's going to find a new friend.
1. Chapter 1

It starts with a girl. She's sitting in a classroom surrounded by people, all alone.

The professor comes in, people stop talking and the professor starts. She stares at him all through class, looking down only to write notes. Class ends and she exits the room, walks to her favorite study spot in the courtyard and begins to review her notes from the morning's class.

"Hullo." Says a cheery voice. She looks up from her notes to see an open tweed coat covering a light blue shirt whose collar is held together by a blue bowtie.

She scrunches her eyebrows together both from the sun and out of confusion. "Hello?"

"I was just wondering if you knew the way to the library, I'm a bit lost. Never been here before, so it's all a bit new. I love new things, don't you love new things?" He looks down at her, expectant. He runs his thumbs up and down his blue suspenders as he waits for her answer.

"Um, its over there." She points behind him.

"Oh, I see. Thank you…" He pauses, waiting for her name.

"Sandy."

"Sandy. That's a nice name. Reminds one of a beach. I'm the Doctor." He leans in close to her and bumps his cheek against either side of her face. "Is that how people in America greet each other nowadays? Or did I do something wrong," he pauses, "again?"

"Um, its fine, but no we don't really do that sort of thing here. We shake hands, usually."

"Oh, I see, then." He grabs her hand and shakes it. "I'm the Doctor. Got to have a proper introduction you know. Don't need anyone to get confused."

"Wait, Doctor what?"

"Pardon?"

"You said your name was the Doctor, I'm asking Doctor what."

"No, its Doctor who."

"Your name is Doctor Who?"

"No, no the question is Doctor who."

"Okay." He stares at her and she realizes what he wants. "Doctor who?" she asks.

"I do love it when people ask that." He chuckles to himself and looks off for a second, lost in his own world, then looks back at her, "It's just the Doctor."

"The Doctor."

"Yes."

"Does that mean you're the only one in the world?" He cocks his head. "I mean, you're called _The_ Doctor. The usually meaning the one and only, so does that mean you're the only Doctor in the world?"

He smiles at her. "I have to go." He gestures behind him. "I have a thing. I can't miss the thing. Thing. Things. Ha, ha." He waves as he walks off towards the library.

She stares after him, watching as he enters the building.

"Sneaky fellow." she grins, "Didn't answer my question." She fully smiles now, and goes back to her studying.


	2. Chapter 2

Sandy had forgotten all about the strange man who called himself the Doctor by the time she arrived home. She had other things on her mind, like school and family.

She had signed up for 18 hours of classes and with attending the actual classes and the workload for each, it was amazing she had any free time at all.

In her free time she took care of her mother, who sat around the house and drank all day.

Sandy would come home from her classes to walk into the dark house, because the light hurt her mother's eyes, to find the woman sitting exactly as she had been before Sandy left only with a few more empty bottles around her. Sometimes Sandy would come home to find her mother staring just to the side of the television which was turned on to a random channel. She would clean up all the can and bottles, always gently tugging free the one in her mother's hand before she covered her with a blanket from the couch. Her mother would just stare at the wall, barely blinking, before Sandy walked away giving up on hearing her mother utter a thank you. Sometimes she would grab Sandy's arm, but she would always let go, like she used all of her energy on the motion and just couldn't gather anymore to go on.

Sandy was used to it by now, having her mother be a lump on the couch, but she still wasn't used to the blank look her mother turned on her when it was time for bed. Her soul had died the day he son, Sandy's brother, disappeared without a trace which made the police call it a lost cause and quit working on his case. For all intents and purposes it was as if he had just vanished off the face of the planet.

Today was no exception to her expectations.

"I'm home." Sandy calls as she closes the door behind her, cutting off the warm sun and allowing the cold that blanketed the house to drape itself around her. She enters the living room to find a cartoon show playing and her mother staring at the wall to the left of the screen. Walking over to the screen, Sandy turns it off and goes about cleaning up the room. She picks up bottles and cans then throws them in the recycle bin before she tosses her schoolbag into her room located just off of the kitchen.

She returns to the living room to pull off one of the blankets draped over the back of the couch and lays it across her mother's shoulders.

"You have to keep warm, mom." She says before she walks back to her room to start on her homework, but falls asleep at her desk.

She dreams of a blue box sitting in the middle of a park and a hand reaching out towards her and hears a man call, "Come along now, Sandy!"

"Where?" She cries.

"Anywhere, anytime. We're off on an adventure!"


	3. Chapter 3

"Physics!" He claps his hands together, "I do love physics! I'm Professor Smith, by the way. Just so you all know. Smith. John Smith. Professor John Smith. Smith."

"But this is Contemporary Literature." a girl in the back of the class points out. "Not physics."

"Not physics?"

"Not physics." she tells him, not amused.

"Whoops. Did I replace the wrong person?" He looks around in a contemplative way before he claps his hands again and smiles, "Alright. Contemporary Literature. Let's see, what time does that take place. 2030's? No, I know 2050's, right?"

"1950's to today." the same student points out.

"Oh, is it not the 2030's yet?"

All of the students stare at each other.

"It's 2009." One of them finally supplies.

"Oh. Well, um." He looks embarrassed. "Class dismissed. Enjoy your day off, then."

Students gossip as they gather their books and exit the classroom, sneaking glances at the crazy substitute professor.

Sandy grabs her books and hastily stuffs them back in her bag and pushes against the flow of students to stand directly behind the man who is now examining an Expo marker and holding it close to his face, turning it round and round while muttering to himself. She taps him on the shoulder and he twirls around to smile at her, while discreetly pocketing the marker.

"So, you do have a name."

"Pardon?"

"Smith. John Smith. Or is it Doctor John Smith?"

"Its just the Doctor. Smith is a pseudonym. My name is the Doctor."

"So, its not Doctor Smith. Just Doctor?"

"Yes. The Doctor."

"_The _Doctor."

"Yes."

"What kind of doctor are you then?"

He stares at her, a small smile on his lips as he answers her question, like he is amused by it. "I'm a healer of sorts." he pauses, "I fix things."

"What sorts of things?"

"Anything?" then he thinks and adds, "I'm pretty good at plumbing, opening doors, mechanical things. I can fix planets and people too."

"People? You can fix people?"

"Yes."

Her eyes go wide, "Can you fix my mother?"

"Why? Does she need fixing?"

"Ah." Then she gasps in realizing maybe she said too much. She fishes her phone out of her pocket and looks at the time. "Gee, look at that. Time for my next class." As she hurries out she calls back. "See ya around, the Doctor!"

"Yes, see you around." He yells after her, then quietly again when the door slams behind her, "See you around."


	4. Chapter 4

Sandy sees him again when she's standing in line waiting to order food. He's picking up some food from the counter and talking heatedly to the guy who's working. Exiting from the line she walks up behind him and taps him on the shoulder. He turns to stare at her.

"Is there a problem?"

"Yes." The Doctor tells her. "I ordered chips and this man gave me crisps."

She smiles at him. "Chips are called french fries here, not chips."

"Well, they shouldn't be. Britain is your mother country. Don't you think you should call everything the same? Because, honestly, calling chips 'french fries' is a bit insulting. I would have ordered fish fingers and custard, but they don't sell that. He doesn't even know what custard is."

"What is custard?" Sandy asks.

The Doctor throws his hands up in the air. "Americans." He mutters. "Custard is delicious. That's what custard is." He points his finger at her. "And don't you forget that."

"I won't." She promises.

He smiles at her, "Good." He turns back to the window and takes his food. Sandy watches him leave. A sense of sadness washes over her and she doesn't know why. Trying to shrug it off she finishes lunch and heads to her quiet spot that lies behind one of the buildings.

Not a lot of people know about it, probably because the place is taped off with caution tape because the building is being remodeled, but it has been taped off since she arrived at the school a year and a half ago. Just one glance would tell anyone that the remodeling is a lie and the county should just tear it down and rebuild a new one in its place, but like always they never did what was good for people, they used their money on other projects. But Sandy is glad that they have never touched it because now she has a place to go that's quiet and out of the way.

She heads for the bench that she erected three months ago, but she finds it occupied by no one other than the Doctor.

He smiles at her as she stops behind him. "Hullo." He says and wiggles his fingers.

"Hi." she replies, "How come we keep meeting up?"

"I dunno. The question isn't that, though."

"Then what is the question?"

"How did _you_ find this place?"

"I've known about it for a year and a half."

"Yes, but how did you find it?"

"I didn't. My brother did and he showed it to me."

"Your brother?"

"Yeah."

"Can I talk to him?"

"Why?"

"I want to know how _he _found this place."

"What's so special about this place?"

"It has a perception filter on it. A weak one, but it has one nonetheless."

"A perception filter?"

"Yes." He says and hops up and begins to circle her.

"What's a perception filter? Is that like glamour?" she asks.

"Glamour? What's glamour?" He is still circling her and Sandy keeps trying to follow him with her head.

"You know, the stuff faeries use to hide their true forms." She explains, still trying to follow him with her eyes, but starts to get dizzy.

"Yes. A perception filter is like that." He gets out a long silver thing that looks like an over-sized pen and presses a button on it. The end glows green and it lets out a buzzing sound. After a couple of seconds he flips it and looks at it, then screws his face and taps it muttering, "That can't be right." He looks up at her. "You're just a normal human."

"Yeah. Just like you."

He deposits the pen back in his jacket and resumes circling her, "No, not like me. I'm not human. I'm an alien. A Time Lord, actually." He stops in front of her and peers into her eyes, "Where is your brother? I want to talk to him."

"Why?" She frowns at him. "Will you stop looking at me like that? Its disturbing."

"No, I won't. Not until you tell me where your brother is."

"Why do you need to talk to him?"

"I need to talk to him so I can figure out how he found this place."

"He just stumbled upon it, he said."

"Yes, but how?"

She scoffed, "He just needed a place to escape to and he just started walking and somehow he found it."

He bent in even closer to her. "Why won't you tell me where your brother is?"

She laughs nervously, "I don't know."

"Yes you do. Now tell me." He steps even closer and Sandy takes a step back.

"Will you stop that, please?" She says a puts a hand out.

"No." He steps closer.

"Please?" He takes another step.

"No. Where is your brother?" He's gotten really close to her. Their noses are almost touching. Sandy says nothing and doesn't move. Memories wash over her and her situation at home rushes through her head.

"I can't tell you."

"Why not?" Their noses are touching now. Sandy steps back and puts out her hand to stop him from coming closer, then looks are her shoes and answers.

"Because he disappeared four months ago."


	5. Chapter 5

"Oh. I'm sorry." He says and steps back, giving her space.

"It's not your fault." She tells him.

"But, still. That must hurt."

She looks up at him, "It does." She breathes in, then whispers, "Everyday."

The Doctor's face crumples. He doesn't know what to do. He wants to put his hand on her shoulder, but based on her previous actions she doesn't like a lot of contact.

Sandy sees his face. "Doctor, you don't have to do anything." She tells him. "I'll be okay." She reaches out a hand to put on his shoulder, but he's too far away now so she lets it drop back down to her side.

A crash from inside the building makes them both jump. The Doctor heads towards the building.

"Are you crazy?" Sandy whispers, "You _never_ go towards the noise." He crept closer. "Doctor? Doctor? Oh, fu-whatever!" She cried softly and followed along behind him.

Inside they found an older gentleman gathering up all the metal her could find in the building and stacking it.

"Hey! That's my bike!" Sandy yelled. The Doctor clamped his hand to her mouth, but it was too late.

The man turned towards them, his arms held close to his body and his wrists limp making them look bug-like. His eyes were dull and all black and as he started towards them a pair of antennae started growing out of the top of his head.

"No." Sandy said. "No."

The Doctor turned to her, "Do you have any bug spray?"

She looked at him, "In _my_ bag?"

"No? Okay." He snaps his finger, "Oh perfume, lotion, any smelly thingy?"

"Do I look like the kind of girl who carries that stuff with me?"

"I don't know!" He yells and throws his hands in the air.

"No, I don't." She screams back at him.

"Ah." He glances back at the old man who is now a gigantic cockroach, "It's finished morphing." He runs towards her and grabs her hand, it is large and warm. "We need to run." He glances back at the roach. "Now!" He says and starts to dash off, pulling her along.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 5

"Do you have any bug spray?"

"In my bag?"

"No, okay." He snaps his finger, "Oh perfume, lotion, any smelly thingy?"

"Do I look like the kind of girl who carries that stuff with me?"

"I don't know!"

"No, I don't."

"Ah. Its finished morphing." He runs towards her and grabs her hand, it is large and warm. "We need to run." He glances at the roach. "Now!" He says and starts to dash off.

"I knew I shouldn't have worn fucking flip-flops today!" Sandy yells. Beside her the Doctor laughs and squeezes her hand.

She has to concentrate really hard on running and not tripping while she has her flip-flops on, so she decides to get rid of them. She steps hard hoping to get enough friction on the shoe that it sticks and her foot slips free, but it does the opposite and brings her toppling down. She scramble to get up, but the roach is close so she does the only thing she can think of: she throws her shoe.

It hits the cockroach straight in the head and it stops a moment, confused, then starts towards her again. Finally getting up she grabs the other shoe, prepares herself and hurls it at the roach and starts running again, grabbing the hand of the Doctor as she passes him.

"Run!" She screams at him.

"Oh, I got it." He cries and fishes out his long pen.

Sandy looks over at him, "The pen?" she cries.

"It's a sonic screwdriver. If I use it, hopefully it will stun it long enough that we can catch our breath and think of a way to reason with it!"

Sandy pulls a face, ready to argue with him, but is too out of breath to do that. "Fine. Do that."

He quickly spins around and presses the button on the sonic screwdriver and the roach stops in its tracks and collapses on all its legs.

"There." He says, "That was easy."

She stares at him. "That bit was?"

"Yes."

"Okay." She clicks her tongue, "What now?" She walks over to him and stands beside him.

"Well, I've got to find a way to reason with it."

"Reason with it? It just tried to kill us. A _roach_ just tried to kill us. And you want to reason with it?" She glances down at it. "Oh. I'm going to be sick."

"Its just a roach."

She stares at him again. "Just a roach. Yeah, it's just a roach. Its hundreds of times bigger than the ones that live in your house, but it's just a roach!"

"Well, technically it's not a roach at all. It's an alien, from a different planet."

"Aren't aliens from different planets?"

"You're really sarcastic aren't you?"

"What gave you that idea?"

"Well all of your comments." He kneels down in front of the roach and sonics it again, then reads his sonic.

"You said it was a sonic screwdriver. What does that mean?"

"It's a screwdriver that's sonic. This is weird, he's reading normally."

"What does that mean?"

"It's not registering him as an alien." He smacks his screwdriver against his hand.

"It's an alien, then, not an experiment?"

"See, I don't know. I'm not getting a proper reading."

"But you're talking like aliens exist." He stares up at her. "They do, don't they?"

He smiles, "I'm an alien, you know."

"Of course you are." Then mutters, "Of course you are." She shakes her head. "Why wouldn't' you be? This is great." She takes out her phone and checks the time, "Shit. I missed my class. Shit, shit, shit. Thanks a lot, sir."

"You're standing with an alien and a gigantic bug and you're mad that you missed class?"

"Of course. I paid for those classes." She glimpses at his amused face, "Oh, shut up. I hate missing class."

"Ha, ha. You are a strange one." Her face fell.

"Yeah, I am." He squinches his eyebrows down. "Um, Doctor? It's moving again."

"What?" He looks down to discover that one of its antennae is moving. "Run, again. Not that way." He calls to her as he runs the opposite direction of her.

"But we just went that way!"

"I know! But I parked this way."

"What?"

"Trust me."

She stares at his back as they ran and decides to trust him, "Okay!" She calls.


	7. Chapter 7

"I'm sorry about all this. It is a bit rushed." The Doctor says as he runs around and starts throwing things while muttering, "No, where did I put it?"

Sandy just stands and gawks. "Its bigger," she takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, "It's bigger on the inside?"

The Doctor whips around, "Ah, right, yes first time in the TARDIS. I forgot." He says and throws what's in his hands behind him.

"Tardis?"

"Time and Relative Dimension in Space." He tells her and goes back to rummaging through a trunk he had dragged out of a hidden closet.

"What does that mean?"

"Aha!" The Doctor shouts in triumph and holds up a yellowed newspaper. "Found it."

"A newspaper?"

"Yes, a newspaper. The _perfect_ bug killing machine." He grins at her, "Come along, Pond."

"Pond, who's Pond?"

His smile disappears for a second, then comes back smaller than before, "Well, come on Sandy. Let's kill ourselves a cockroach."

Sandy nods and follows him out the doors of a blue police box. "Um, Doctor?"

"Yes?" He says, absently.

"Why is there a cockroach that big at all? And wait, how are you going to kill it with a tiny newspaper."

"You say newspaper funny."

"What? You're the one that says it funny."

"Nope."

"You're avoiding the question. Why?"

"Because I don't know the answer."

"Oh." She pauses, "Why is the blue box bigger on the inside?"

"Reasons."

"You don't know, do you?"

"I do, but I don't have time to explain." He tells her as they round a corner and see the cockroach sitting very still, its antennae are twitching slightly, waiting for them.

"Doctor?" Sandy whispers. "You have a plan, don't you?"

"Yes, always." He whispers back.

"Good. What is it?"

"Kill the cockroach with the newspaper."

"That's your plan?"

"Yes."

"I see a flaw."

"I don't." And he rushes out from behind the corner they were hiding and makes a smacking motion toward the cockroach and one of its legs buckles then breaks with a horrifying _crunch_.

"Oh, my god." Sandy whispers. "Doctor what kind of newspaper is that?" She shouts.

"Wednesday the 4th, October 5021." He says and holds the newspaper out in front of him like a rapier.

"Look out!" She screams at him and lunges forward just as the cockroach launches its attack.

The Doctor makes another swatting motion with his newspaper and the cockroach explodes in a shower of hard exoskeleton and bug goo.

Sandy stands in the aftermath covered.

"Well," The Doctor says, "that went well." He smiles at her.

Sandy wants to be mad, but the joy on his face makes any anger she has vanish and she erupts into a fit of giggles. "That was crazy!" She grins at him.

"It certainly was. Now, we just need to figure out why it was here and what it wants?" He starts towards her, "And if there are any more."

Her smile fades, "We?"

He stops and blinks at her, "If you want."

She can't breathe. "I do."

His smile returns, "Good!"

"But I can't."


	8. Chapter 8

They climbed in the TARDIS and the Doctor pushed some buttons and finally threw a lever and it began to shift around and Sandy had to hold on, for fear she would fall, but she didn't hold on tight enough and her hand slipped off the railing. She was thrown forward and landed near the bottom of the console where she scrabbled to grab anything. Finding the edge of the floor she hung on. Tightening her grip, as she felt herself slide, she gasped as a sharp pain, like being poked by a needle, pierced her finger and she automatically brought her hand up to her mouth, but there was no wound.

What she didn't see was a tiny drop of blood fall down to the heart of the TARDIS, hiding under the console, and was absorbed.

They landed with a thud and Sandy stood up, then rushed over and helped the Doctor up who had fallen down as well. He brushed himself off and brushed her off as well before he made his way, nonchalantly, to the doors.

"Well, here we are." The Doctor said as he opened the doors and she saw the front of her house.

"Thanks." She said and started out the door, but was stopped by a hand on her arm.

"Are you sure you can't come with me?" She stared at him.

"I have to take care of my mom." She told him.

"I can bring you back here, at this very moment. It is a time machine."

"What?"

"It's a time machine." He repeated, his face lighting up at this small sign of hope.

She felt like she couldn't breathe again. Her brother, she could find her brother, she could save him. But her mother. "I can't."

"It's okay to be selfish now and again." He told her. "It's okay to run away, sometimes."

Her face grew angry and she wrenched her arm away from the Doctor, "No, its not. Running away is the most selfish thing a person can do. A person like that doesn't think about what's being left behind, how they affect those that are left behind." She took a deep breath and stared at her shoes, "I'm sorry." She said.

"It's fine." And she looked up at his words, he seemed so sad and not fine at all. "Good-bye, Sandy."

"Good-bye, _the _Doctor." She said and smiled a little, but he didn't just stared at her and she let her smile drop as she watched him climb into his blue box and shut the door.

She was still standing there as it faded out of existence with a loud _vworp, vworp_. She was still standing there long after it had gone. Reaching up and touching her face, she realized she was crying. "You made your decision." She said out loud to herself. A squirrel stared up at her from the sidewalk, "I made my decision." She told it. "So, why am I crying?"

Deciding it would be a good idea to head inside, she did just that and entered the dark house. Her mother was sitting in her chair with a beer bottle clutched in her hand in the exact same position she had been in when Sandy had left that morning. It had seemed like so long ago. So much had happened since that morning. "Hi, mom." She called out, but got no answer. She never did.

Shrugging her shoulders and trying to calm herself down she went to take a shower and wash away all of the leftover bug guts the quick dry toweling hadn't gotten when she was in the TARDIS. And after that, she was going to do her homework and move on with her life. Forget all about the Doctor. Yeah, right.

Three days later they found her brother's body. The police had received an anonymous tip and investigated. What they had found were his remains at an abandoned warehouse close to Sandy's campus. It is interesting to note that his remains were in perfect shape. The coroner had concluded that the cause of death had been a bullet to the heart from close range that had occurred four months earlier, perhaps only days after he had disappeared.

Sandy arranged the funeral, her father paid for it, her mother drank even more. The day after the funeral Sandy came home to find her mother in the bathtub holding a piece of a broken beer bottle. It was too late.

Sandy arranged the funeral, her father paid for it and told her that he would arrange for money to be deposited in her bank account each month so she would have something to live off of, but don't expect to see him ever again. He just had to get away. Sandy had only nodded.

At the funeral, Sandy was the only one who cried. When it was over and everyone had already left the cemetery she was still standing next to her mother's grave when she heard a sound. _Vworp, vworp_. She spun around looking for the sound and saw a blue police box with a very odd looking man, who looked very confused, getting out.

He looked around him for a moment before his eye alighted on her and he smiled. "Well, look here. It's Sandy. I was wondering where she was taking me."

"Does the offer still stand the Doctor?"

"Of course."

She smiled, "Then I'd like to take it."

"Splendid!" And he disappeared back into the TARDIS. She watches as he leans out and holds a hand out to her, "Come along now, Sandy!"

"Where?" She cries.

"Anywhere, anytime. We're off on an adventure!"


End file.
